Possession (was: Re: Ergative)

>JOEL MATTHEW PEARSON wrote:
>> I don't know anything about Old English, but I wouldn't be surprised
>> if you'd hit the nail on the head. Certainly the German equivalent
>> "Weh ist mir" is a be+dative construction.
>
>Cool. What got me to wondering about that is the fact that Latin used
>_esse_ + dative for "have" sometimes.

Use of BE + a dative or locative expression to denote "have" is quite
common. Both Russian and Hindi express "I have a book" as "a book is
beside me". I think the Celtic languages do this as well. So do
Hungarian, Finnish, and Turkish.
What's less common, I think, is having both a BE + dative/locative and
a HAVE construction in the same language (as in Latin and French).
Tokana adopts the BE + dative construction for representing possession:
Imai he halma
me:DAT is book
"to-me (there) is a book"
i.e. "I have a book (with me)"
There are also other ways of expressing possession in Tokana. To denote
alienable possession (ownership of material objects), the verb "eha" =
"belong to, be owned" is used:
Imai eha ante halma
me:DAT belong many book
"I own many books"
To express kinship possession, or possession of land or animals (things
which one has stewardship over), the verb "iala" = "be the responsibility
of" is used:
Imai iala hen lihpa
me:DAT be-responsible two sister
"I have two sisters"
Itai kameima iala hen talpe uet
the:DAT family-DAT-my be-responsible two field barley
"My family has/owns/works/takes care of two barley fields"
To express a part-whole type of relationship, e.g. possession of body
parts, the verbs "yma" = "include" and "enyma" = "consist of" are used:
Imai yma inie lune
me:DAT include pair-of-eyes blue
"I have blue eyes"
Itai katiai enyma ehte kotu
the:DAT house-DAT consist-of three room
"This house has three rooms"
or "This is a three-room house"
Matt.
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Matt Pearson
mpearson@ucla.edu
UCLA Linguistics Department
405 Hilgard Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543
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